Instead of being Christian Nationalists, biblical Christians will do just fine identifying as Christians—Christians who love their country—a country that is part of Christendom. And that’s consistent with how our believing, yet imperfect, forefathers—not to mention countless nominal Christians who were part of a Christian-informed culture—saw themselves until about five seconds ago in the span of history.

This is a short piece with a limited objective. The important subject of the influence of “true religion” (biblically-grounded Christianity in olden days) in America will be for another day. Here, I’m using the term “Christian Nationalism” (CN) only in order to deride it. As my friend and retired pastor Larry Ball points out, the CN discussion has become frenzied (“The Frenzy Over Christian Nationalism”). No doubt a major part of this turmoil, as a number of highly capable commentators suggest, is that the term CN is undefined, or poorly defined. (This isn’t the first such occurrence, of course: the misnamed “Global War on Terror” was another well-known example—a term that failed to identify the enemy.) Perhaps CN is indefinable (absent an inordinate number of exceptions or caveats). I will go further. The term “Christian Nationalism” is useless. . . . That’s the best case.

How so?

The late, gifted and beloved pastor-educator-author, Dr. Voddie Baucham, put it this way. There are only three possible alternatives to being a Christian Nationalist. As long as words mean things and have the ability to define the categories of human thought and expression, unless one identifies as a Christian Nationalist one must be found a Pagan Nationalist, Pagan Globalist, or Christian Globalist. How’s that for a selection?

In his uniquely insightful, humorous, and winsome manner, Baucham suggested that given those four choices, the biblical Christian has no alternative to identifying as a Christian Nationalist—with a small mountain of caveats, of course, to ensure one is not mistaken for a Hater—Xenophobe, Racist, Fascist, Trans-phobe, or whatever. The various clarifications are required because of the term’s ambiguous nature, meaning something different to each person. That’s not by accident on the part of CN’s neo-Marxist originators whose intent is to divide further American society into oppressor-oppressed factions. It is part and parcel of the Maoist-Wokeist rending—the prolonged struggle-session, or self-loathing—of the West.

To illustrate CN’s neo-Marxist origin, does anyone need to be reminded that the full term is so-called White Christian Nationalism—which, as Baucham famously put it, is “a triple-word score” for the haters of civil-ization.

But why is there no alternative to Christian Nationalism for the serious Christian? Well, to be a Globalist is to promote Caesarism, empire-building. Which option the Bible takes off the table for the biblically-literate Christian. Jesus told those who sought to entrap Him: “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). The fourth option of Christian Globalist—Caesarism—is no option at all for the obedient Christian, because not all things belong to Caesar. There are “things that are God’s.”

Every well-grounded Christian, then, by process of elimination, must identify as a Christian Nationalist. But when a man-made theory purports to explain Everything or Everybody, it explains Nothing or Nobody. A better reply to the question, “Are you a Christian Nationalist?” is to respond: “I am a Christian who loves his country.” On November 1, 1860, nineteenth-century Presbyterian R.L. Dabney—“Stonewall” Jackson’s future chief-of-staff and chaplain—preached a sermon in Virginia based on Psalm 122:9, “Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek Thy good”:

The true Christian feels the claims of patriotism as sensibly as any other man, though he holds them subject to the limitations of justice and charity to others. Thus, King David resolves that he will seek the peace of Jerusalem . . . not only as a patriotic king, but from an additional religious motive. So the Christian has a motive for patriotism far stronger and holier than those of all other men. Additional to theirs, he has this reason to pray for the peace of Jerusalem: for his brethren and companions’ sakes, and because of the house of the Lord his God which is in it.[1]  

Some have suggested the term “Christendom” is more useful than CN. I agree. Christendom is a historically understood term, it includes the West broadly, and, unlike CN it was not invented by its enemies. It does not carry an unbearable amount of baggage that must be clarified painstakingly at every turn.

Instead of being Christian Nationalists, biblical Christians will do just fine identifying as Christians—Christians who love their country—a country that is part of Christendom. And that’s consistent with how our believing, yet imperfect, forefathers—not to mention countless nominal Christians who were part of a Christian-informed culture—saw themselves until about five seconds ago in the span of history.

Forrest L. Marion is a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church (PCA), Crossville, Tennessee.

[1] Robert L. Dabney, “The Christian’s Best Motive for Patriotism,” sermon preached on Nov. 1, 1860, in Jonathan W. Peters, trans. and ed., Our Comfort in Dying: Civil War Sermons by R.L. Dabney, Stonewall Jackson’s Chief-of-Staff (Destin, Fla., 2021), 95-105.